One of the all time great action movies gets a worthy 4K set
Summary
Hard Boiled remains in my personal top ten action movies of all time and this 4K set is a must have for John Woo fans. The special features are some of the best I’ve seen with fascinating interviews that explore the making of this seminal classic.
Plot: In this genre-defining masterpiece from action legend John Woo (Face/Off, Mission: Impossible 2, The Killer), a cop (Chow Yun-Fat, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Killer) who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In order to get closer to the leaders of the ring he joins forces with an undercover cop (Tony Leung, In the Mood for Love, Marvel’s Shang-Chi) who’s working as a gangster hitman. They use all means of excessive force to find them.
Review: I just got the new Shout! 4K of Hard Boiled as I’ve only ever had the movie on DVD. I’m so glad someone finally got the rights to these Hong Kong classics, but this has been my most anticipated as it’s one of my favourite movies of all time.
Special Features:
- 4K Scan from the Original Camera Negative
- Presented in Dolby Vision
- Optional English Subtitles Newly Translated for this Release
- Audio Commentary with Director John Woo and Film Journalist Drew Tayler
- Audio Commentary with Film Historian Frank Djeng
- Audio Commentary with Director John Woo, Producer Terence Chang, Filmmaker Roger Avary, and Critic Dave Kehr (Recorded by The Criterion Collection)
- Violent Night: Interview with Director John Woo
- Boiling Over: Interview with Actor Anthony Wong
- No Time For Failure: Interview with Producer Terence Chang
- Hard To Resist: Interview with Screenwriter Gordon Chan
- Boiled to Perfection: Interview with Screenwriter Chung Hang Ku
- Body Count Blues: Interview with Composer Michael Gibbs
- Hong Kong Confidential: Inside Hard Boiled with Author Grady Hendrix
- Gun-Fu Fever: Interview with Author Leon Hunt
- Chewing The Fat: Interview Academic with Lin Feng
- Deleted and Extended Scenes
- Trailers
- Image Gallery
Directed by action maestro John Woo, on this feature-packed set he discusses Hard Boiled in an amazing 40-minute interview; he mentions how he filmed the movie angry due to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, the gun problem in Hong Kong at the time and more. It’s fascinating stuff and every feature in this set doesn’t disappoint. My personal favourite is the interview with producer Terence Chang who talks about how this was made in 1991, a few years before Hong Kong was given back to China. The streets were filled with crime, and the filmmakers even had to pay off gangsters for protection while filming.
The picture and sound quality are a vast upgrade from my crappy DVD copy, so even without all the amazing extras this would be worth picking up.
The deleted and extended scenes don’t add much as they are mostly just alternate angles or takes, but I still enjoyed them. The interview with Composer Michael Gibbs is also entertaining as he talks about creating the musical sound of Hard Boiled.
I rarely read the essays you get in the booklets of these special editions, but I flicked through one and stopped reading when he wrote “I could care less” rather than “I couldn’t care less”.
Aside from that, this 4K set of Hard Boiled is worth the very long wait even if it is on the pricey side. I saw there were places that were selling out of it, but Amazon still have copies, and I got it from them with no problem.
The movie itself remains a classic and if there’s a cooler protagonist than the awesomely named Tequila (Chow Yun-Fat) I’ve yet to see him. Tony Leung also shines here as the undercover cop Alan who manages to be sympathetic despite being a murdering bastard.
Hard Boiled has arguably some of the best action scenes you’ll ever see; there are so many fantastic set-pieces, and it wastes no time getting going with that incredible tea house shoot-out, the shoot-out at the warehouse and of course the iconic hospital showdown. That shot of Tequila jumping out of the window as the building explodes is still truly jaw-dropping.
In another interview in this set Anthony Wong (who plays villain Johnny Wong) talks about how he felt he overdid in the movie and has never watched the film since it came out. I think he did a fantastic job as his character was a complete psychopath who kills anyone who gets in his way.
One of my favourite characters is the henchman, Mad Dog (Philip Kwok) who at first comes off as a nasty piece of work, but as the story progresses, we see his conflict as he watches his boss kill innocents.
The film is perfectly paced and aside from a few wonky moments of dialogue the script works well and makes us care for our characters. John Woo says in the interview how he wanted to make this essentially a Dirty Harry film where our hero saves the world and I think he did a fine job.
The music score is a little dated sounding in parts now, but I still love it especially some of the jazzy cues and action beats.
Overall, Hard Boiled remains in my personal favourite action movies of all time and is not only a masterpiece of action cinema, but John Woo’s finest hour. This 4K set is worth the hefty price tag as not only does the movie look and sound great but the features are genuinely fascinating and will keep you entertained for hours. Bring on The Killer, Bullet in the Head and A Better Tomorrow.